Digby W.

Turn your College Physics / AP Physics Anxiety into Skill, Confidence

Turn your College Physics / AP Physics Anxiety into Skill, Confidence

Featured review

Took away physics anxiety and replaced it with confidence and big smiles

My daughter started working with Digby because she was struggling in AP Physics I. She's a hard-working, capable student but was having trouble grasping the course. She would study and thought she understood the material, only to be wiped out on the tests. Working so hard and not seeing the results she wanted left her with little confidence in physics. She was too self conscious to seek additional help from her teacher much less talk to her classmates about it. The frustration and anxiety led to tears and thoughts of dropping the course. But she needed to take AP Physics for her college application; more importantly, she is not a quitter. Digby was the 5th or 6th tutor we tried. I lost count. I found Digby after reading many reviews and thought he might be the one. But my daughter hesitated at first. She wanted a local, in-person tutor, not someone online. She was hoping to work with someone younger and not a former physics teacher. In fact, she was already working with a local young woman who had just graduated from an Ivy League university. But this young woman, like many of my daughter's other previous tutors, would tell her how to do the problems so to be done with the assignment. This would have been fine if that was all she needed to pass the class. My daughter wanted and needed to understand what she was doing well enough to handle the subject on her own, without someone looking over her shoulder and "spoon feeding" her. So she agreed to try online tutoring with Digby. She felt like she clicked with Digby on the first session. This was not the case with many of her other tutors. After the first session, Digby suggested that they not focus on getting through the homework. Instead, he wanted to go back to square one so that she could master the fundamental building blocks from the ground up. Digby wanted to teach her the basic principles of physics, and how to use them to figure things out herself. Fortunately, she agreed. She started working with Digby in October and over the next few months I noticed a change in her attitude towards physics. It was as if the lights started to go off for her and she started to get the concepts that were discussed in class. She became more confident, and started to raise her hand in class and offer input. Physics class went from something she dreaded to something she enjoyed. She would sometimes come home with a big smile because of how well things had gone in physics that day. By December, she was solid on the fundamentals and caught up in class, and felt confident and well-prepared going into her end-of-quarter exams. She felt good about herself, because she was taking a tough class and understanding the material. She didn't just become more confident in physics. She became confident in all her classes, because once she overcame the challenge of physics, she knew she could handle any other class. In the weeks before the AP Physics I exam, when her classmates were anxiously cramming, she was relaxed and confident. Digby actually ended their final session early because she was fully prepared and didn't need additional help. After the AP exam, she came home and said, "Digby really prepared me!" I can't sing Digby's praises enough. It made me so happy to see my daughter's confidence, and I am so grateful that she felt good about herself, and to have seen her go from dreading physics to lighting up about it.

Sophie, 32 lessons with Digby

Very knowledgeable and patient tutor

Digby is highly recommended. If you are looking for a tutor to work with you to understand the material and be successful in your class look no further. Please consider Digby for your tutoring needs. The time I have worked with him during my difficult college physics class has been worth every penny.

Chuck, 36 lessons with Digby

Confidence Builder

Digby approach to teaching promotes both better understanding and confidence. He's patience has a calming effect that promotes faster and deeper learning and comprehension.

Steve, 5 lessons with Digby

A huge help

Digby is working with my son who is in AP Physics. My son used to dread his physics homework constantly complaining he didn't understand it. 2 sessions with Digby and he has a brand new attitude about it. AMAZING!

Molly, 3 lessons with Digby

"Career Dreams and Confidence Restored Following Failed AP Physics Test Panic"

The night I contacted Digby about physics tutoring, my daughter was a ball of stress, and I was desperate to find a way to help her. She had enrolled in AP Physics C as an 11th grader with no calculus background. AP Physics C is grounded in calculus, but my daughter had only a few weeks of pre-calc under her feet. Her physics teacher, trying to drum up his class enrollment, had promised to teach the math skills she lacked. Trusting this, she had courageously waded in. Three weeks into the school year, the first big quiz came. She failed it. Hard. After many hours of studying. When she got home that day, her face was pinched tight and white as a sheet. I’d never seen her look like that. She has high college and career ambitions, and I knew she felt all those hopes and dreams were suddenly, genuinely threatened. She was barely keeping a lid on rising panic. We both realized--she was in way over her head. The promised calculus instruction just wasn’t happening. Neither was patient, comprehensive instruction of just the physics. My daughter was totally lost and getting more so every day. And what was worse--we knew the weeks ahead would only get more brutal. After a meeting, the school refused to let her out of the course. Drop deadlines had passed. She had no choice. She had to go through it. But she couldn’t survive on her own. Finding the right tutor seemed the only chance my daughter had of getting through. I jumped online and read profile after profile of tutors. Then I found Digby’s and stopped. As a former long-time teacher, I had a feeling from seeing his background and the reviews of other students that he was the right tutor for my daughter. And he was. She’s been working with him now for the past many weeks, progressing enormously each and every time she has a lesson. He went back to the beginning and brought her forward from the start. After the first lesson, I noticed an immediate difference in how she was coping. She relaxed and began to trust again that she could learn the material. She’s now moving forward with her class, participating often, and understanding the homework. It’s still not easy. Physics just isn’t easy, but with Digby there, all the panic has vanished. The stress is gone, too. She’s got someone who not only can help her get answers but who can help her really understand every aspect of the physics she needs to know. Some teachers cannot translate what they know into something other people can learn. Digby is different. He’s genuinely got that teaching “thing”. He can figure out what a student doesn’t know and then figure out how to make physics comprehensible for that student. The flunked quiz seems way behind us. My daughter’s dreams and ambitions for her future are back on track. Digby now also tutors my daughter’s twin sister in physics because even though the twin has calculus in her background, physics C is tough. With both my kids being rescued from certain academic peril, I can say one thing for sure: Digby may be their tutor but he is also our hero. We will always be so grateful that we found him, that he was so good, and that he was there and willing to help when we needed it!

Lorelei, 55 lessons with Digby

Great Tutor!

Digby W. was great at helping me understand my physics problems, and how to go about the different ways of solving them.

Casey, 2 lessons with Digby

Got me through a tough condensed general physics class with an acceptable grade.

Physics was the last class I needed to take to qualify for a graduate program for a medical career. I took a 4-week accelerated summer physics course to complete the requirement. The course required algebra and trig. I hadn't done any trig since I began college more than 10 years before. I had done algebra more recently for chem courses, but not at the level I needed for my physics course. Digby was not the first tutor I worked with. The first tutor was frustrated because I didn't know some of the basic physics stuff that he thought I should know. He also showed me some algebra problem-solving techniques that confused me. Digby taught me all the trig I needed for my course in less than an hour, and then showed me how to break things down to figure out how to apply the trig without getting confused. In less than I week I felt competent and confident using basic trig functions to solve physics problems. Digby also worked through physics concepts and techniques with me so that I started solving problems on my own. When we started working together, I was often very anxious about physics. By the time we were done, I actually really enjoyed solving some types of problems. I also went from being lost in class and lab, to being able to follow most of what was going on. I definitely recommend Digby for college level physics tutoring.

Christi, 20 lessons with Digby

Very helpful at getting me to understand what is going on

Taught me physics, very knowledgeable in this field and very passionate in helping students excel in this subject. Will definitely use him again and I'd recommend it to a friend.

Donna, 1 lesson with Digby

Physics tutor for HS Jr.

Digby had a great ability to tie things together for me. I was struggling and starting to be behind. Not only got me up-to-date but made everything clear so that I could master the tests and exams. Very pleased with my AP score! I recommend him!

Alexandra, 17 lessons with Digby

Knowledgeable tutor

Digby helped my daughter prepare for the AP Physics exam. She had two sessions with him and he helped tremendously. He taught her the basics quickly and had success with her where her high school physics teacher had failed. He taught her new strategies to help fill in the holes and help her gain confidence in the material. I only wish Digby had been teaching my daughter all year!

Suzanne, 2 lessons with Digby